自考英语综合一上册 lesson 5

　　[00:00.00]Text

[00:02.69]The story began on a downtown Brooklyn street corner.

[00:08.05]An elderly man had collapsed 1 while crossing the street,

[00:13.51]and an ambulance rushed him to Kings County Hospital.

[00:18.96]There,when he came to now and again,the man repeatedly called for his son.

[00:27.43]From a worn letter found in his pocket,

[00:32.08]an emergency-room nurse learned that his son was a Marine 2

[00:37.83]stationed in North Carolina.It seemed there were no other relatives.

[00:44.30]Someone at the hospital called the Red Cross office in Brooklyn,

[00:49.87]and a request for the boy to rush to Brooklyn

[00:54.83]was sent to the Red Cross director of the North Carolina Marine Corps 3 camp.

[01:01.81]Because time was short the patient was dying

[01:07.27]the Red Cross man and officer set out in a jeep.

[01:13.22]They found the young man wading 4 through some marshesin a military exercise.

[01:19.07]He was rushed to the airport in time

[01:24.14]to catch the one plane that might enable him to reach his dying father.

[01:30.98]It was mid-evening when the young Marine

[01:35.56]walked into the entrance lobby 5 of Kings County Hospital.

[01:41.20]A nurse took the tired,anxious serviceman to the bedside.

[01:47.57]"Your son is here,"she said to the old man.

[01:52.12]She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened.

[01:59.38]The medicine he had been give because of the pain from his heart attack

[02:05.34]made his eyes weak and he only dimly saw the young man in Marine Corps uniform

[02:13.88]standing outside the oxygen tent.

[02:18.84]He reached out his hand.

[02:22.60]The Marine wrapped his strong fingers around the old man's limp 6 ones,

[02:29.55]squeezing a message of love and encouragement.

[02:35.51]The nurse brought a chair,so the Marine could sit by the bed.

[02:41.75]Nights are long in hospitals,

[02:46.30]but all through the night the young Marine sat there in the dimly-lit ward 7,

[02:52.25]holding the old man's hand and offering words of hope and strength.

[03:00.30]Occasionally,the nurse suggested that the Marine rest for a while.He refused.

[03:08.37]Whenever the nurse came into the ward,the Marine was there,

[03:14.12]but he paid no attention to her and the night noises of the hospital

[03:20.59]the clanking of an oxygen tank,

[03:24.96]the laughter of night-staff members exchanging greetings,

[03:30.83]the cries and moans 8 and snores of other patients.

[03:37.31]Now and then she heard him say a few gentle words.

[03:43.66]The dying man said nothing,

[03:48.52]only held tightly 9 to his son through most of the night.

[03:55.00]It was nearly dawn when the patient died.

[04:00.35]The Marine placed on the bed the lifeless hand he had been holding,

[04:07.01]and went to tell the nurse.

[04:10.78]While she did what she had to do,

[04:14.85]he smoked a cigarette his first since he got to the hospital.

[04:20.49]Finally,she returned to the nurse's station,where he was waiting.

[04:26.66]She started to offer words of sympathy,but the Marine interrupted her.

[04:32.43]"Who was that man?"he asked.

[04:36.79]"He was your father,"she answered,startled.

[04:41.55]"No,he wasn't,"the Marine replied."I never saw him before in my life."

[04:49.59]"Why didn't you say something when I took you to him?"the nurse asked.

[04:56.25]"I knew immediately there'd been a mistake,

[05:00.80]but I also knew he needed his son,and his son just wasn't here.

[05:07.88]When I realized he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son,

[05:15.04]I guessed he really needed me.So I stayed."

[05:20.78]With that,the Marine turned and left the hospital.

[05:25.96]Two days later a message came in from the North Carolina Marine Corps base

[05:32.49]informing the Brooklyn Red Cross

[05:36.43]that the real son was on his way to Brooklyn for his father's funeral.

[05:43.51]It turned out there had been two Marines with the same name

[05:49.86]and similar numbers in the camp.

[05:54.53]Someone in the personnel 10 office had pulled out the wrong record.

[06:00.70]But the wrong Marine had become the right son at the right time.

　　[06:07.67]And he proved,in a very human very,

[06:12.72]that there are people who care what happens to their fellow men.